


Tokyo Ghoul

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tokyo Ghoul, Blood, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fantasy, Kagune (Tokyo Ghoul)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:48:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22548823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: Yuta goes out for dinner.
Relationships: Nakamoto Yuta/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Tokyo Ghoul

“Are you hungry, Yuta,” she asked me with a giggle. Before I could answer, “Of course you are. You didn’t eat anything at the theater.”

Hunger isn’t even half of it. What I feel goes beyond that. I am a void that can’t be filled and that hollowness eats me alive. “I’m not hungry,” I try to tell her. “Really, I--”

“We can pick something up since we’re out here already,” she insists. 

It’s the weekend so the restaurants are packed and the vendors are lined up from one end of the block to the other, offering street foods like calamari rings and takoyaki balls or even desserts like taiyaki and dango. However, we turned off the main street about five minutes ago, leaving the foul stench of cooked food behind us.

She must sense my hesitation. “Or…” Her voice softens. Takes on a mild hint of sultry smokiness. “Or you could stop by my place? I can cook you something. I don’t live far.”

Ahh. Now I understand why she’s purposefully leading me through a darkened park between apartment buildings.

Bold of her, really. It’s only our first date.

Her invitation is something I should adamantly say no to. I am hungry--starving--but I can’t eat anything she offers me. Instant ramen. Chicken skewers. I can’t eat any of it. No, it’s not that I don’t trust her to cook something edible… She looks like a competent woman. She doesn’t seem like the type to be purposefully clumsy in the kitchen in an attempt to look appealing. No. This has nothing to do with her and everything to do with the fact that I can’t eat any food. I would much rather eat her. “You don’t have to go through the trouble,” I make another attempt. 

“Come on, Yuta. It’ll be special.” 

I give in. But only a little. “Just make me a coffee, please.”

She grabs my hand in hers and pulls me towards a small apartment complex across the street from the park. It’s an old building, in need of fresh paint, but the premises are well-maintained. The trash receptacles are clean and organized and there are numerous safety lights installed at the corners to keep the shadows away from the narrow doors.

Her hand is soft in mine. Her fingernails are long and painted pastel pink. She’s a pretty, stylish woman and I kind of hate that I’ve only just noticed such things. 

I hadn’t been particularly interested in this date to begin with. An old high school friend set us up. It’s not like I got to see much of her in the darkness of the movie theater and it’s not like I get to see much of her now beneath the flickering orange lamp of the street post we pass under, but I can see that she’s pretty. Long hair that reaches to her back. A simple ankle-length dress and cheap-looking cardigan yet she wears expensive heels and a handbag with a famous designer’s logo embroidered in the leather. 

When she turns around and smiles happily at me, I make the decision then and there to eat her. 

It’s her own fault, I try to reason. We could have parted ways back on the main street. I could be at the train station waiting for my ride home right now. I could be doing any number of things but instead, I am here. She is here. My hunger is always here.

To eat her is simply a matter of convenience. There is no anger. No grudges.

I just haven’t eaten in a week. That’s all it is.

I’m hungry.

And

hunger is 

empt

iness.

This kind of starvation goes a bit beyond just needing sustenance to live. I should know. I feel it constantly. Even when I’ve just eaten. The feeling claws at my insides. Nags at me even when I am sated and full. It’s this desire to…  _ consume _ .

I am but a Ghoul. 

A monster.

All I can do is survive.

And is survival so wrong?

I squeeze her hand. Harder than I mean to.

She responds positively. She giggles and squeezes back. Then she stumbles.

I catch her before she falls.

My date laughs it off. “My heel!” She motions to her foot.

I look down. The heel of her right shoe has gotten caught in the grated metal of a manhole cover.

“Sorry, Yuta,” she squeaks out and uses the opportunity to lean her weight on my shoulder. With the new leverage, she turns a little and pops her heel free. Fortunately, the shoe itself doesn’t appear to be damaged. “I usually don’t walk home from this direction,” she tells me. “It’s my own neighborhood but it feels weird seeing it from this angle.”

Her attempt at conversation does not interest me. Her words make it to my ears but they lose all meaning beneath the rush of blood in my ears.

I’m so hungry.

It’s eating away at me from the inside.

And it’s because I am a Ghoul that I feel this way. It is because I always need to  _ feed _ .

I look around. The park and the nearby street are quiet. Empty. It’s odd. It’s not too late in the evening. There should be more noise and movement than this.

Part of me wants to hate how quickly I assume the role of predator. 

The other part of me simply accepts it as my role.

Just existing as a Ghoul can be dangerous. There are always news reports about Ghoul attacks. On the news. On social media. It makes humans reek of fear. But it is also a dangerous time to be a Ghoul. We constantly have to watch our behavior or we expose ourselves to attack. Hunters will chase us down. Territorial Ghouls will fight tooth and claw for feeding rights. I haven’t lived in this Ward for too long, only since I graduated college, but I know most of the neighborhoods enough to avoid the streets other Ghouls have claimed or else I’ll provoke a fight.

It is dangerous. Deadly, at times. But we are just trying to live.

Some of us assimilate into human society. We get jobs. Date. Some of us get married. A few even have children. All in the name of looking like our neighbors. Keeping up the facade. It is almost laughable but I do the same thing. I went to college. Now I have a 9 to 5 office job. 

Now I go on dates with women on the weekends.

“Yuta,” she nudges me with her shoulder playfully.

I snap out of my thoughts. I turn to look at her. Almost immediately fall into the trap of her dark eyes. “Yes?” The word comes out of my mouth scratchy and dry. Pulled taut like an archer’s bowstring right before he fires.

“You were spacing out. Is everything alright?”

“Just thinking about… tonight.”

She blushes. She lowers her gaze and coughs to cover up a laugh.

She is thinking of one thing. I am thinking of another.

I’m not thinking much at all.

As we stand there, more and more of my brain is consumed by hunger.

My stomach growls.

She laughs again. “And you told me you weren’t hungry. I guess I still get to cook for you.” She looks up at me again and most of her face is pink with shyness. “Should we eat before or… after?”

The sooner the better. “Before,” I grunt out.

There will be no after.

There will only be consumption and satiation. 

Hunger.

Hunger is the home that you knew and made memories in your whole life except you moved out during your childhood and it’s your first time back in years. 

That’s how hunger exists. Familiar. Yet very strange. Uncomfortably so.

It was once home yet it is now a foreign place to you. You almost forget which street it is on. And it looks nothing like you remember. The yard is overgrown and far smaller than your childhood led you to believe. Moss clings to the vinyl siding and the wooden stairs leading up to the front porch threaten to break beneath your weight. When you get inside, the wallpaper is peeling. Rat droppings smudge the carpet. Cobwebs hide in the corners and dust coats the kitchen counters. Nothing is familiar despite the life you lived there. You should belong but you don’t. The place no longer looks or feels or smells like home because all it is now is an empty shell with your croaking, emotional voice echoing off the walls. 

The wood and the brick and the glass have forgotten you.

If they remembered you at all.

When you

hun

ger

like I do—when you hunger like a  _ Ghoul _ —your very soul becomes that empty, forgotten house. Your insides feel hollowed out. Existence is reduced to your primal, repetitive, caveman thoughts rebounding off your bones and every part of your body is so unfamiliar even though it is  _ yours _ . 

You think you can handle it, you really do, especially when you make it a point to go as long as possible between feedings, but every time 

hunger 

comes it is like you are experiencing it for the first time. It is like you are a newborn child who knows only how to scream for what it is they need to live. And all I want to do is scream.

That’s how hunger is.

Brutal. 

Heavy. 

Cold.

“Yuta, what’s wrong?”

Her voice is a light in the darkness. Through her, I can see my way out of this.

“Yuta, if you don’t want to come upstairs, that’s fine. We can see each other again.”

But there won’t be an again, my brain cries. 

Because now will be the last time.

How long has it been since I’ve eaten? How long? Last weekend? When Teruhi and I feasted on that young boy who had jumped to his death from the top of the old bridge?

That feels like an eternity ago. That’s what hunger does to you.

It stretches out the days. Your slow, silent suffering makes hours feel like weeks.

Then you start losing parts and pieces of yourself to the darkness just beyond the confines of your sanity. 

Your mind just… slips 

away, leaving nothing but a monster behind. A Ghoul. 

When the hunger gets bad, my impulse control is the first to go. 

Everything I used to be able to easily hide now becomes impossible to mask. I get impatient and anxious and paranoid. Everywhere I go, I fear humans can see that I am different. Other. I walk down the street and fear that a hunter has caught wind of me and will pounce on me the moment I let my guard down. I get frightened. I get angry. And then when I get angry  _ enough _ , everything gets all blurry at the edges and then my wits start to go. 

I lose 

my

self awareness

and my senses heighten. Like right now. Adrenaline fizzes through my veins and I just feel so strong. Like I can do anything. Go anywhere. My Ghoul instincts take over and push everything else out. I can only SMELL 

her sweat. 

her perfume. 

The garbage piled up nearby. 

The gasoline in the parked truck across the street.

her shampoo.

her lip gloss.

The cat food someone has left out for the neighborhood strays.

A stumbling drunk’s vomit.

A wild animal’s shit.

her nail polish.

her.

her.

her.

I can only TASTE.

The sweetness of 

her mouth on mine.

I can only HEAR.

Her pulse thrumming in her 

neck.

Her breath catching slightly as she leans away and raises a hand to her lips. “Am I moving too fast,” she asks, blinking up at me. 

My grip on reality slackens. I lose track of where I am and what we’re doing out here. Common sense flees. I forget

my name.

Wait… 

What  _ is _ my name? 

No. I must hold on. I must keep at least some small piece of myself intact until we reach the end of the block and cross the street. 

I want to eat her when I am still myself. I don’t want to... lose... myself...

I’m…

My name is…

  
  
  
  
  
  


It’s right there. I can just… 

barely… 

remember…

But I’m too hungry.

This emptiness

in

side

me needs to be filled.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


I need.

I need need NEED need NEEEEEEEEEED to eat but 

I have to wait just a little while longer. 

Until we cross

the street. 

Until I am sure

that

no one’s watching.

  
  
  


Until. We’re. 

Alone.

  
  
  
  


Until.

Until.

  
  


Until.

Until.

Until.

She’s saying something. 

Her voice is soft and high. Her waist is narrow like a doll’s. She’s dainty, pink and light.

  
  
  


Delicious!!!!!!

  
  


She’s laughing about the movie we just saw together, repeating some funny line that stuck with her. 

“Don’t you remember?” 

Her voice floats down to me from far away even though she’s right next to me, pulling me along. “It was the best part!” 

I laugh along with her because I’m frustrated and tired and starving and annoyed. 

My hand sl

ips out of hers.

  
  
  


The moon is out. It is summer. It is late but it is still hot outside. Her dress is thin and cotton and clings to her skin like it’s  _ skin _ and I can see the sweat on the back of her neck and on her back and on the backs of her thighs and I can smell her perfume and her sweat and I can smell her her her 

her HER her 

Her

and I can’t stop salivating because 

I’m so hungry 

SO HUNGRY and

so hungry

So hungry

so

hungry

  
  
  
  
  


so hungry

so

hun

gry

  
  
  


And

And

And

  
  


I don’t think she knows.

How does she not know?

How can she not tell?

How can she not see?

i

don’t

think

she

knows

  
  
  
  


I don’t think she knows how much danger she’s in. 

I don’t think she knows that I’m not human. 

How does she not know?

Why can’t she see?

I don’t think she knows that

I’m just 

pretending 

to be 

human. 

Pretending to like her. 

Pretending to  _ be _ like her. 

Pretending to be interested in what she’s talking about. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


All she is to me is

food.

I grit my teeth and fight back this craving. 

Not yet. Not yet.

I can hold out.

I can stay present just a little while longer.

There’s still enough of 

me 

left that my politeness still hangs on. 

Clings. 

_ I’m just pretending _ . 

How can she not see?

I don’t want to interrupt her while she’s talking. 

Is that silly of me? I’ll wait until she finishes. Until her excitement dies down. 

We’re across the street now.

We’re standing in front of her building now.

She’s walking me towards the metal, outdoor stairs.

She

The hunger in me swells, retreats, swells, retreats

Swells

Retreats

Swells

retreats. 

Like the ocean. 

I’m so close. 

So close to her. So close to  _ losing it _ . 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


There’s no one behind us. There’s no one watching.

  
  
  
  
  
  


  1. Just. Need. A. Little. More. Time.



  
  
  


Most young Ghouls are afraid of the darkness in them but it can sometimes be comforting to me. 

It’s always there. 

Like a mother. 

  
  
  


Ready to teach you. 

Like God. 

Ready to guide you to your next meal. 

And if that meal is guarded, the dark can show you how to fight your way to it. 

And if some other Ghoul tries to take your kill, the dark can show you how to protect your food.

We all need to 

eat. 

Right? 

We all need to keep ourselves from starving. Humans. Ghouls. 

  
  


Aren’t we the same in that regard?

Can you blame me?

Can you be mad at me for wanting to stay alive? For wanting to live? It’s not like I chose to be born a Ghoul? It’s not like I chose to only be able to eat people.

The lamp above her door blinks out and it’s exhilarating how quickly the light 

  
  
  
  
  
  


disappears. 

A sudden gust of wind starts up and I’m overwhelmed by the fresh scent of her all over again.

I can’t take it.

I give into the dark—the hunger—that’s inside me and I sink below intellect and reason down 

down down down down into instinct. 

Hell, I say the dark is something far more primal, one-dimensional and  _ effective _ than instinct. Down this low, my brain loses most other cognitive function and only becomes capable of issuing me one single command:

  
  
  
  
  


F E E D.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Feed.

F

Feed.

E

Feed.

E

Feed.

Feed.

Feed.

D

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


And I follow that command.

  
  


I reach into my back pocket and pull out my mask or, perhaps, my true, honest face. 

  
  


The real me.

  
  
  
  


It’s not one of those fashion masks that are all the rage these days. It’s a true mask. One designed to completely obscure identity. Or, perhaps, to completely assume an identity.

The mask is genuine cow leather and it is cool to the touch despite the humid night. With practiced movements, I slide the thing down over my dark hair. It fits the top half of my face perfectly. It’s custom tailored for my long and narrow face and wide-set eyes and sharp nose.

It is mine. 

The only parts of my face it doesn’t cover are my mouth and chin, disfiguring the rest of me into a horned, grotesque monster.

The

real

me.

The woman and I are surrounded by shadows now. In the brand new darkness, she fumbles to fit her key into the lock. 

The train station isn’t too far from here. I can hear the rattle and buzz of a passing locomotive.

Her back turned to me, she says, “I think you’ll be a little bit surprised by the things that I like.” She laughs at herself, as if she so rarely gets to admit such a thing. “I hope you don’t think less of me when you find out. We can start off with something simple, right?” When she falls silent, waiting for my answer, I realize that the rattling buzzing noise I’d been hearing had been her nasally insect voice all of this time and not a passing train. 

She turns to look at me over her shoulder. I can hear her heart 

thumping 

bumping 

dumping 

pumping blood through her body. 

She smiles and tilts her head. “Yuta, are you okay?”

That’s right. 

That’s my name.

  
  
  


Nakamoto Yuta.

She doesn’t startle when she sees my new face. Not like I expected. I smell no fear from her. Maybe she did know. Maybe this whole time she  knew what I was and what would surely happen to her. 

She looks right at me, waiting for my response. Her smile never falters. Her body never tenses.

I take it as a sign.

  
  
  
  
  


I lunge forward, closing the gap between us in less than a blink. 

I swing my right hand at her neck at juuuuuust the right angle. 

It’s the quietest  _ thud _ . 

A door closing. 

Her head tilts in the opposite direction. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Her smile shorts out. 

  
  


She goes limp—unconscious—and I catch her in my arms. 

I half-drag half-carry her through the door she has just opened. 

It’s dark inside. Quiet. Still. 

There doesn’t seem to be anyone else here. Not even a pet cat. 

I pull her body through the foyer and into the living room, away from the windows. Away from the orange squares of light that come in as the lamp outside flickers back on.

All of my other kills come to my mind, projected right between my eyes like a horror movie in grisly black and white. 

The details are vibrant but they all kind of mush together in my mind. There’s just so much of it. And it is what I must do to keep living. Details are irrelevant. 

It’s all just body parts and blood. 

Fingers and toes and arms and feet. 

Muscles and bones. 

It’s all just food.

It’s all just echoes of screams and the THUD thud THUD THUD thud thud thud THUD of racing, frantic, terrified hearts slowing down slowing down slowing down slo w i n g down, stopping. 

  
  
  


One of them wore glasses and I can see my own red eyes reflected back at me, my face straining with throbbing black veins, skin stretched tight across my skull like it doesn’t fit me. Like the skin is a costume. I don’t care what I look like. I don’t care about the three, spindly, too-many-jointed limbs that tear out of my back like insect legs. 

It’s hideous and ugly but I don’t care because it’s me. 

I am what I am. 

Being afraid of what I see won’t change that I’m a Ghoul, won’t change how many I have killed to stay alive, won’t make living in this city being feared and hated by everyone around me any easier, won’t make the 

HUNGER 

hunger 

HUNGER 

HUNGER 

hunger 

hunger 

HUNGER 

go away, won’t bring me any satisfaction. Acceptance is the easiest, straightest path. That’s why I accept that I’m a killer and that I’ve killed a lot. I don’t remember any faces and I definitely don’t remember any

  
  


names

  
  


but I like to think that no one else remembers the victims either. At least not for long. Maybe a concerned, hopeful mother will put up ‘missing’ posters on bulletin boards. Maybe the police will be kind enough to put out an alert. Maybe the local news station will cover the disappearance by sending a reporter into the neighborhood but, deep down, they should all know what has happened to the one who vanished. 

That a Ghoul got to them. 

That the ghost stories are true and that _they do exist_. And that the monsters lurking in the dark--the tragedies whispered about casually in corporate break rooms--finally descended upon someone that they knew so now they have to accept it. 

Sure, a world may be shattered and a family will be torn apart but shouldn’t these lowly, bumbling, ignorant humans know by now not to cause much of a fuss? 

Acceptance 

would be so much

easier. 

This girl here, this girl unconscious in my arms, probably has family and friends... but don’t we all? Family doesn’t make her special. 

Even Ghouls have parents. 

We all have to do what we must to exist

so

I

eat

her.

  
  
  


I absolutely have to. I. Fucking. Need. To.

I must. 

I HAVE to in order to 

survive. 

The hunger is too great. I must sate it.

I bi

te into her. 

I ch

ew her. 

I 

swal

low 

her. 

  
  
  
  
  


I have to go for the shoulder first. It’s my favorite part. The skin is so smooth and the muscles are so taut and long and tender. Blood gushes from her gaping, jagged wound and my tongue lashes out to lick at the crimson spurts. 

Then I bite her again, this time tearing into her neck. 

I hear her choke. I hear her shout. I feel her start to die.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She 

tastes

so good.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Each wet, warm morsel of her slides down my throat and falls into that bottomless darkness in me. 

More.

More and more, I eat. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


I don’t know where to start so I try everywhere. 

  
  
  


Her hands. 

Her throat. 

Her stomach. Her cheek. Her inner thigh. 

Wherever my teeth find purchase, 

I dig in and teeeeeeaaar a chunk of her free. 

I savor the weight and texture of her on my tongue and when I swallow, I shiver in delight. 

She dies quietly in my arms. 

Painlessly, perhaps. 

Her blood coats my hands. 

My face. 

I keep eating. 

More.

More and more, that dark hole inside me fills up. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Her 

smell 

is all over the place and I know that any other Ghoul in the area can 

smell her, too—fresh food—but if they want to feed, 

if they want to attempt to 

take 

her from me, they do not show themselves. 

They do not bother me. They better not.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


I keep 

going and 

going 

and going 

and going and going and 

going

until there is very little left. 

  
  


A plate licked clean. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


I’m covered in her 

blood. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Covered in 

parts of her. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


I choke because her eyeball sticks to the inside of my throat on the way down and then I 

laugh 

laugh 

laugh 

because I look around me and she’s EVERYWHERE. 

Pieces of her scattered all over the place. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Red. Red. Wet. 

Warm. 

  
  


Red.

  
  
  
  
  


I keep going and going. 

Biting and chewing and swallowing until

I’m no longer hungry.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Until

  
  
  


I’m no longer

empty. 

  
  
  
  
  


I smear what’s left of her on my hands into the carpet around me. 

I wipe what’s left of her off of my face and mask. 

My jacket is soaked with her blood. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


I keep it on because it smells like her.

  
  
  


I go home.


End file.
